Congress Reduces Medicare Payment Cut by Half

Advocacy by ASHA and other groups has led to a law, the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2024 (H.R. 4366), that will reduce Medicare Part B cuts from 3.4% to 1.7% for the remainder of 2024.  

The remaining payment cut – which impacts nearly 50 types of physician and nonphysician professionals, totaling more than 1.2 million clinicians – is the result of an arbitrary and unfair formula that requires payments under the Medicare Physician Fee Schedule (MPFS) to remain budget neutral.  

ASHA strongly believes payments to audiologists and SLPs are inadequate and must be increased. The MPFS conversion factor (CF) cuts – compounded by other congressionally-mandated budget control mechanisms threatening Medicare payments – are forcing providers to make difficult decisions about the viability of participating in Medicare, which could, in turn, limit patient access to care. Medical inflation also continues to erode Medicare payments, which are failing to keep pace with the cost of providing care.  

While it’s disappointing that Congress failed to fully reverse the 3.4% payment cut, the partial increase to Medicare payment rates by H.R. 4366 is a positive development. The partial increase will lessen the impact of the MPFS CF cut for the remainder of the year and demonstrates bipartisan congressional support for fully fixing this flawed policy in the future.  

What’s Next? 

ASHA continues to work with fellow impacted organizations to find short- and long-term solutions to boost Medicare payments for audiology, speech-language pathology, and the broad range of other essential services that have been impacted.  

You can take action now by telling your representatives in Congress to add an inflationary adjustment to Medicare Part B payments and address other sources of arbitrary payment reductions harming providers and threatening patients. Your representatives need to hear directly from their constituents to understand the impact of these cuts. Without Congressional action, clinicians paid under the MPFS will almost certainly see additional cuts in 2025. 

ASHA will update our resources to reflect new 2024 payment rates once the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services releases the updated CF. Payments based on the updated CF will be effective for Medicare Part B services provided on or after March 9, 2024. Current payment rates are available on ASHA’s website.  

Questions? 

For questions about H.R. 4366 or ASHA’s Congressional advocacy efforts, contact Josh Krantz, ASHA's director of federal affairs, health care, at jkrantz@asha.org. 

For questions about the MPFS or implementation of updated payment rates, contact the health care policy team at reimbursement@asha.org.